Having Trouble Generating Good
Discussions?

Students Do not Keep
Up with the Reading?

If you can not get the kind of discussion you would like, here are
some factors you might consider.

If students are coming
to class unprepared, consider the following.

What are you
asking students to read?

Do students
know how to read this type of material?

Have you given students
any directions on how you want them to read the material?

Do you want them to
identify the central argument?

Do you want them to
take the argument apart and identify its pieces? (Premises, Types of
Evidence, Conclusion)

Have you helped students
see the significance of the questions you are asking?

Do
you raise the question in your language or theirs?

Questions that interest you are usually important because of
some previous inquiry, which, in turn, was significant to you because
of some earlier question, which derived its own significance from some
still earlier investigation, and so forth. You may be focusing on
questions that lie several layers beneath the surface of matters that
first intrigued you while your students are still standing on the
surface wondering why anyone would be engaged in such a subterranean
mining expeditions.

Help students understand the connection between current
topics and some larger and more fundamental inquiry. Find common ground
with the students in those "big questions" that first motivated your
own efforts to learn and master your areas of specialty.

Do
You Talk Too Much?

When you ask a question, do you wait at least ten seconds
before saying anything more?

Do
you talk more than 5-8 minutes in a 50 minute class?

Do
you let students start the discussion?

Is
the room arranged for good discussion?

Are the students facing each other?
Rearrange
the room if necessary to put students in a circle.

Have you
considered moving your class if you are in a room with (oh, no!)chairs
nailed to the floor?

Do you call on students?

How do you
call on them?

The way you would call
them out to a duel?

The way you would
invite them into a conversation at your dinner table?

What did you do the
first day of class to raise fundamental questions and invite students
into the conversation? Have you given students control over their own
education?

On the first
day of class, some people give students a list of the major questions
(the "big questions") that the discussion will consider. They ask
students to look them over and even to rate their interest in each
question. Then they ask students to report on their interests and get
students with high interest in a particular question to explain their
interest to students with a low interest in that same question.
Finally, they ask students to decide if they want to consider those
questions (to decide if they want to take this course, or take this
course from this professor, or pursue this degree). They give students
control over their own education.

What does your body
language say to students?

Does it say
that you want to hear what they say? That you want them to talk to each
other?

Or that you want
them to listen to you?

What do you do the first
time a student comes to class without reading the assignment?

Embarrass the
student?

Go on to the next
student?

Ask the student
to leave the discussion?

Shape your response
to the student, the class, and the situation?

Have no idea what
you would do?

Have you asked students
to write before they talk?

Have you asked them
to talk in pairs before they talk to the larger group?